The last days of night A novel

Review by New York Times Review

WHAT MAKES A fictional story feel true and a true story feel fictional? This is a question I considered often while reading "The Last Days of Night," a novel by Graham Moore, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of "The Imitation Game" and author of the 2010 novel "The Sherlockian." His new book is a thriller built around the so-called electricity wars fought over a century ago between the rival inventors Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse. Specifically, it explores Edison's attempts to drive Westinghouse (and his superior A/C current) out of business. Our way into the tale is the real-life lawyer Paul Cravath, a prodigy in his mid-20s hired by Westinghouse to defend his growing empire from Edison's attack. Cravath arrives as an underdog on the very first page. Hurrying to a meeting with Edison, he witnesses the horrific electrocution of a workman hanging power lines. Electricity, we are told, is a mixed blessing. Encountering the great inventor, Cravath is intimidated by Edison, who appears here as a single-minded bully: "'If you think you can stop me,' Edison said softly, 'go ahead and try. But you'll have to do it in the dark.'" Along the way, Cravath meets a high-society chanteuse named Agnes Huntington (also a real person), who falls quickly into the role of his co-conspirator. Also on the scene are two other giants of the time, Nikola Tesla and J.P. Morgan, who play important, if very different, roles in the multifronted battle. The novel's action takes place against a backdrop rich with period detail. The late 1800s was a time when magical thinking was being replaced by wonder at the technological possibilities of the future, and Moore's satisfying romp draws on this shift as it builds to an unexpected (if you don't know the history) conclusion. The novel ends with an eight-page note from the author laying out in great detail exactly which parts of the novel happened as described and which did not. Out of necessity, the time frame has been compressed, the chronology of real events fudged and some incidents invented from whole cloth. None of this is surprising. "The Last Days of Night" is, after all, a work of fiction. And yet knowing that the truth has been embroidered doesn't precisely explain the lack of "truthiness" (to quote Stephen Colbert) I felt while reading Moore's book. "Truth" is a word I've pondered often during my tenure working on a television show called "Fargo," based on the Coen brothers' film of the same name. That film starts with a chyron - "This is a true story" - and my show does as well. And yet neither their story nor mine is "true," in that the events depicted never actually happened. At the same time, my understanding of the film, and my belief as the writer of the show, is that to justify the claim, the stories must feel true. But what does that really mean? I would argue that "plot" (which I define as the nature and order of events leading up to a story's conclusion) is a device invented by storytellers. The actions that people take, combined with the things that happen to them, are rarely as clean and clear in a novel or a movie as the ones we experience in real life. Thrillers and mysteries are often reverse engineered from their exciting conclusions as the author goes back in time, piece by piece, to lay in the twists and turns that will, when played forward, deliver the most spellbinding reading experience and build, seemingly without effort, to an unexpected finale. But the twists and turns of real life aren't always so neatly resolved; our lives are subject to a barrage of random forces. And so, in writing about historical events, authors tend to streamline, to throw out the pieces that don't add up, introducing new elements to enhance the narrative while clarifying the motivations of the players. In other words, everyone is made to row in the same direction. Paul Auster depicted the situation facing the writer in "The Invention of Solitude": "A young man rents an apartment in Paris and then discovers that his father had hid out in this same room during the war. If these two events were to be considered separately, there would be little to say about either one of them. The rhyme they create when looked at together alters the reality of each.... But there is more to it than just rhyme. The grammar of existence includes all figures of language itself: simile, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche - so that each thing encountered in the world is actually many things." If I had one complaint about Moore's book - which works wonderfully as an entertainment - it's that it lacks this sense of the arbitrary and the sublime, the feeling that life is stranger and more unfathomable. "The Last Days of Night" is a novel primarily concerned with a linear series of relevant events, and it has shaped those events to have a singular meaning. As a result, the reader is unable to suspend a feeling of disbelief as Moore's plucky underdogs scrap their way through various twists and setbacks while struggling toward their endgame. As it charges forward, the novel leaves no dot unconnected. And this makes its true story feel false. 'If you think you can stop me, go ahead and try. But you'll have to do it in the dark.' NOAH HAWLEY, a screenwriter and producer, is also the author of five novels, most recently "Before the Fall."

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [September 11, 2016]

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Review by Booklist Review

The author of The Sherlockian (2010) presents another twisty historical novel set at the end of the gaslight era. This time the story takes place in a New York City perched on the very precipice of electricity. The book's central focus is on American ingenuity as the basis for commercial success and the so-called war of currents waged between ThomasEdison, George Westinghouse, and NikolaTesla over the creation of the lightbulb. Paul Cravath, the brilliant but inexperienced lawyer hired by Westinghouse to countersue the pugnacious Edison for copyright infringement, unscrupulous behavior, and even violence, provides a first-person perspective. Legal battles and the rancor between scientists drive the pace, while a curious romance unmasks yet another underhanded charade. Woven into this complex drama is a philosophical question about invention: Who is the inventor: the one with the idea, the one who makes a working model, or the one to obtain the patent? Who really did invent the lightbulb? A thought-provoking, suspenseful novel, surprising in its focus, like Matthew Pearl's The Technologists (2012); illuminativeof character, like Bernadette Pajer's The Edison Effect (2014); and displaying the keen biographical insights of Vladimir Piatalo's Tesla: A Portrait with Masks (2015).--Baker, Jen Copyright 2016 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Moore makes fictional use of the real-life events that occurred in the late 1880s, when Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse locked financial horns in an all-out billion-dollar New York courtroom war over who invented the electric lightbulb. The novel's protagonist is another historical figure, attorney Paul Cravath, who, fresh out of Columbia Law School, was tapped by the wealthy and powerful Westinghouse to defend him against Edison's suit. Moore's writing makes the mogul's surprising decision seem entirely credible, and reader McClain's vocal interpretations-Cravath as youthful but cocky, and Westinghouse as gruffly realistic, but subtly impressed-add much to that credibility. For Edison, the book's antagonist, McClain uses a crisp, to-the-point delivery that carries a hint of mockery and more than a hint of threat. As the novel and the legal battle progress, marked by courtroom twists, electrocutions, fires, attempted murder, and hairbreadth escapes, Cravath meets a series of fascinating, fully crafted characters, all of whom are provided appropriate voice. But McClain's talent is best on display when speaking for the maddeningly eccentric Nikola Tesla. The genius inventor who yammers away in a Serbian accent that sounds authentic and is mostly understandable, constantly shifting emotional gears from sarcasm to truculence to self-aggrandizement to, finally, genuine warmth and fondness toward Cravath. Quite a performance. A Random House hardcover. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Thomas Edison's billion-dollar patent infringement lawsuit against George Westinghouse is merely one salvo in the late 19th-century "current wars." In a surprising move, Westinghouse hires novice lawyer Paul Cravath to handle his defense, and Cravath quickly discovers that Edison will go to any lengths to ensure that his direct current (DC) system becomes the standard over the alternating current (AC) promoted by Westinghouse. Caught between the two rivals is eccentric inventor Nikola Tesla, driven by visionary ideas, not money. Assisted by Agnes Huntington, a celebrated actress with a shadowy past, Cravath manages to protect Tesla from external pressures and internal demons. Burglary, arson, corporate espionage, and other unscrupulous political and business deals raise questions about who can be trusted and fuel Cravath's desire to defeat Edison. But will the personal price be too high? Although technical information about electricity sometimes slows the pace, vivid descriptions and plot twists abound. Moore provides extensive notes about real events and where his plot diverges. The cinematic quality of writing is unsurprising, as the author of The Sherlockian is also the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game. Verdict With Moore's novel and a 2017 film adaptation starring Eddie Redmayne, Cravath may become as famous as Edison, Tesla, or Westinghouse. Expect heavy demand. [See Prepub Alert, 3/21/16.]-Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State Univ. Lib., Mankato © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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CHAPTER 1 The Last Days of Night   People don't know what they want until you show it to them. --Steve Jobs   May 11, 1888   On the day that he would first meet Thomas Edison, Paul watched a man burn alive in the sky above Broadway.   The immolation occurred late on a Friday morning. The lunchtime bustle was picking up as Paul descended from his office building onto the crowded street. He cut an imposing figure against the flow of pedestrians: six feet four inches, broad shouldered, cleanshaven, clothed in the matching black coat, vest, and long tie that was to be expected of New York's young professional men. His hair, perfectly parted on the left, had just begun to recede into a gentle widow's peak. He looked older than his twenty-six years.   As Paul joined the throng along Broadway, he briefly noticed a young man in a Western Union uniform standing on a ladder. The workman was fiddling with electrical wires, the thick black cables that had recently begun to streak the skies of the city. They crisscrossed the thinner, older telegraph wires, and the spring winds had gusted them into a knotty bundle. The Western Union man was attempting to untangle the two sets of wires. He looked like a child flummoxed by enormous shoelaces.   Paul's mind was on coffee. He was still new to the financial district, new to his law firm's offices on the third floor of 346 Broadway. He hadn't determined which of the local coffeehouses he preferred. There was the one to the north, along Walker. And the slower-serving but more fashionable one, on Baxter, with the rooster on the door. Paul was tired. The air felt good against his cheeks. He hadn't been outside yet that day. He'd slept in his office the night before.   When he saw the first spark, he didn't immediately realize what was happening. The workman grabbed hold of a wire and tugged. Paul heard a pop--just a quick, strange pop--as the man shuddered. Paul would later remember seeing a flash, even if at the time he wasn't sure what it was. The workman reached out for support, grasping another wire with his free hand. This, Paul would come to understand, was the man's mistake. He'd created a connection. He'd become a live conductor.   And then both of the workman's arms jolted with orange sparks.   There had to be two hundred people crowding the street that morning, and every head seemed to turn at the same time. Financiers parading in their wide-brimmed top hats; stock traders' assistants sprinting down to Wall Street clutching secret messages; social secretaries in teal skirts and sharp matching jackets; accountants out hunting for sandwiches; ladies in Doucet dresses visiting from Washington Square; local politicians eager for their duck lunches; a fleet of horses dragging thick-wheeled cabs over the uneven cobblestones. Broadway was the artery that fueled lower Manhattan. A wealth heretofore unknown on the face of the earth was burbling up from beneath these very streets. In the morning's paper Paul had read that John Jacob Astor had just become officially richer than the Queen of England.   All eyes fixed on the man in the air. A blue flame shot from his mouth. The flame set fire to his hair. His clothes burned off instantly. He fell forward, his arms still wrapped around the wires. His feet dangled against the ladder. His body assumed the position of Jesus upon the cross. The blue flame fired through his mouth and melted the skin from his bones.   No one had screamed yet. Paul still wasn't even sure what he was watching. He had seen violence before. He'd grown up on a Tennessee farm. Death and the dying were unspectacular sights along the Cumberland River. But he'd never seen anything like this.   Epochal seconds later, as the man's blood poured onto the teenage newsboys below, the screaming began. A stampede of bodies fled the scene. Grown men knocked into women. The newsboys ran through the crowd, not heading anywhere in particular, simply running. Trying to pull the charred flesh from their hair.   The horses reared on their haunches, kicking their legs into the sky. Their hooves flew at the faces of their panicked owners. Paul was frozen in place until he saw a newsboy fall in front of the wheels of a two-horse carriage. The stallions shook at their reins, lurching forward and drawing the wheels toward the boy's chest. Paul was not aware of making the decision to lunge--he simply did it. He grabbed the boy by the shoulder, pulling him out of the road.   Paul used his coat sleeve to brush the dirt and blood from the child's face. But before Paul could check him for injuries, the boy fled into the crowd again.   Paul sat down against a nearby telegraph pole. His stomach churned. He realized he was panting and tried to steady his breath as he rested in the dirt.   It was another ten minutes before the ringing of bells announced the arrival of the firemen. Three horses pulled a water truck to a stop beside the grim scene. A half dozen firemen in black-buttoned uniforms lifted their disbelieving eyes to the sky. One reached instinctively for his steam-powered hose, but the rest simply gazed in horror. This was like no fire they'd ever witnessed. This was electricity. And the dark marvel of man-made lightning was as mysterious and incomprehensible as an Old Testament plague.   Paul sat transfixed for the forty-five minutes it took the fearful firemen to cut down the blackened body. He took in every detail of what he saw, not to remember, but to forget.   Paul was an attorney. And this was what his as yet brief career in the law had done to his brain. He was comforted by minutiae. His mortal fears could be assuaged only by an encyclopedic command of detail.   Paul was a professional builder of narratives. He was a teller of concise tales. His work was to take a series of isolated events and, shearing from them their dross, craft from them a progression. The morning's discrete images--a routine labor, a clumsy error, a grasping arm, a crowded street, a spark of fire, a blood-speckled child, a dripping corpse--could be assembled into a story. There would be a beginning, a middle, and an end. Stories reach conclusions, and then they go away. Such is their desperately needed magic. That day's story, once told in his mind, could be wrapped up, put aside, and recalled only when necessary. The properly assembled narrative would guard his mind from the terror of raw memory   Even a true story is a fiction, Paul knew. It is the comforting tool we use to organize the chaotic world around us into something comprehensible. It is the cognitive machine that separates the wheat of emotion from the chaff of sensation. The real world is overfull with incidents, brimming over with occurrences. In our stories, we disregard most of them until clear reason and motivation emerge. Every story is an invention, a technological device not unlike the very one that on that morning had seared a man's skin from his bones. A good story could be put to no less dangerous a purpose.   As an attorney, the tales that Paul told were moral ones. There existed, in his narratives, only the injured and their abusers. The slandered and the liars. The swindled and the thieves. Paul constructed these characters painstakingly until the righteousness of his plaintiff--or his defendant--became overwhelming. It was not the job of a litigator to determine facts; it was his job to construct a story from those facts by which a clear moral conclusion would be unavoidable. That was the business of Paul's stories: to present an undeniable view of the world. And then to vanish, once the world had been so organized and a profit fairly earned. A bold beginning, a thrilling middle, a satisfying end, perhaps one last little twist, and then . . . gone. Catalogued and boxed, stored for safekeeping.   All Paul had to do was to tell today's story to himself and it would disappear. To revisit the images over and over in his head. Salvation through repetition.   But as it turned out, a flaming corpse over Broadway was only the second most terrifying thing that Paul Cravath would see that day.   Later that evening--after his secretary had departed to her Yorkville apartment, after his senior partners had retired to their upper Fifth Avenue three-stories, long after Paul had failed to leave for his Fiftieth Street bachelor's flat and instead penned so many notes with his rubber Waterman that the blister popped on his right middle finger--a boy arrived at the office door. He bore a telegram.   "Your presence is desired immediately," read the message. "Much to discuss in strictest confidence."   It was signed "T. Edison."         Excerpted from The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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